Ten Miles Past Normal - By Frances O'Roark Dowell Page 0,4
get out to the goat pen, the girls await. Loretta Lynn trots up to greet me, rubbing her nose against my arm. She, like her boon companions Patsy Cline and Kitty Wells, is a Nubian, which means she has a very nice Roman nose and doesn’t look like a picture-book goat at all. Of all the girls, she’s the most affectionate. That’s probably because she’s at the bottom of the goat hierarchy. Loretta Lynn is sort of like Andie Rowan in eighth grade, who was nice to everyone in hopes that one day someone would actually say hi to her in the hallway.
In one hand I carry a bucket, in the other, a stool. After four years of goat milking, I’m pretty much an expert at it, but unlike when I was ten, when I could say the word “teat” without blushing, now I can’t even think the word “teat” without dying a little death. But aside from the unfortunate vocabulary aspect of it, I actually like milking the goats. It’s satisfying to fill up a bucket with milk that later will become delicious, creamy cheese.
I’ve also found that milking goats can be therapeutic. I talk to the girls to calm them, and because I need a topic to talk about, and because they don’t really care what that topic is, usually I talk about myself. Really, they seem pretty interested, which is amazing, given how truly mundane my personal life is.
“So Sarah and I already got started on our project—total shock, since it’s not even due until November—but it looks like we’re going to have to change the whole thing, since Katie Womack and Lindsey Holpe claim they signed up to do Madeleine Albright before we did. Total lie, by the way, but Ms. Morrison is so clueless, it’s pathetic. Also, she and Katie Womack’s mom went to college together or something, so Katie can do whatever she wants as far as Ms. Morrison is concerned.”
Loretta Lynn looks at me sympathetically over her shoulder, and I continue happily. It’s amazing how fun it is to just say whatever comes to your mind and not worry that everyone will think you’re a total idiot.
“Mom thinks we should do a project on Sally Ride, which would be okay, except I’m not that interested in space travel, and neither is Sarah. Wouldn’t it be sort of disrespectful to be so totally, well, unenthusiastic?”
Loretta Lynn shifts her weight around, the way you would while sitting through a really long lecture on, say, the Peruvian Bill of Rights. Is it possible she’s getting bored? Okay, so this is maybe the third time we’ve had this discussion, but still, she’s a goat. A bottom-of-the-pecking-order goat.
“Well, I’m sorry,” I tell her after a moment or two of petulant silence on my part. “But we’ve got to pick a project topic, and we need to do it this afternoon to turn in on Monday, and if I don’t come up with a totally awesome topic, you know what Sarah’s going to want to do, don’t you? You know what completely stale idea she’s going to suggest, right?”
Loretta Lynn settles. She loves it when I talk trash about Sarah.
“Let’s say it all together on the count of three—one . . . two . . . three . . . Geraldine Ferraro!”
Loretta Lynn bleats an exclamation of pure dismay. The first woman vice-presidential candidate, who ran with Walter Mondale in 1984? she seems to be asking. That Geraldine Ferraro?
“Yes,” I affirm. “That Geraldine Ferraro.”
Sarah Lyman has been my best friend since the summer before first grade, when we both moved to Victoria Lane on the exact same day, our houses directly across the street from each other. As soon as Sarah saw me sitting on my front step, she ran over to me yelling, “Are you the first-grade girl they promised me?”
“Who promised you?” I looked at the tiny girl standing in front me, her yellow braids tied with red and white polka-dot ribbons, and was sure she couldn’t possibly be going into first grade. Maybe someone was promising the preschool girls in the neighborhood a free elementary school student if they ate their peas five nights in a row.
But no. “I’m Sarah,” she said, offering me her tiny hand. “I’m in first grade too. So we should probably be best friends and share things. I have a big sister named Emma, but she won’t share anything.”
Sarah and I have shared a lot over the years—clothes, books, earrings, a